Entrepreneurship by Necessity: Key Factors of Success - Essay Example

Not surprisingly the amount of temporary workers in the economy blossomed while the numbers of long term unemployed workers (27 weeks and over) changed little at 5.7 million or 43% of the unemployed (BLS, 2011). Given the current economic climate, there is a dire need to find new avenues of employment such as entrepreneurship. 1.2. Purpose of the Study This study is aimed at discerning methods that would allow successful entrepreneurship in the US economy based on evidence from current and previous research.

A host of factors critical to entrepreneurship in the current economic climate will be explored which in turn will indicate how feasible new job creation would be. 1.3. Research Benefits Research in this sector will allow a realistic appraisal of entrepreneurship and this should allow for discovering chances to bolster empowerment through entrepreneurship. The dire state of the labor market necessitates that new avenues for development and growth be looked into. 1.4. Hypothesis It is possible for budding entrepreneurs to start a business venture and be successful in the current economic climate. 2. Literature Review It is estimated that the recession badly affected job searches.

Between 1994 and 2008 around half of all job seekers found a job within 5 weeks and only 3% of all job seekers had been out of employment for more than 52 weeks. However as of 2010, only 11% of all job seekers were able to find jobs while only 34% of job seekers got jobs that lasted more than 5 weeks (BLS, 2011). A major reason for the decrease in jobs was the slowdown of the manufacturing sector in the US and this problem was exacerbated by the onslaught on an economic recession (Verheul, Bosmaa, van der Nol, & Wong, 2002).

In order to deal with the problems created by these phenomenon, one possible avenue for growth in jobs is entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is critical to the US economy especially in terms of the small businesses defined as having less than 500 employees (SBA, 2011). Small businesses support entrepreneurial effort with much greater ease as financial commitments are lower. It is worth noting that these businesses account for some 53% of the labor force’s employment (Kobe, 2007). Moreover smaller businesses have accounted for 65% of new job creation between 1993 and 2009 while most of this growth stems from fast growing high impact firms.

These firms represent between 5 and 6% of all firms and the typical age for these firms is 25 years (Zoltan, Parsons, & Tracy, 2008). However entrepreneurship is nothing new to the US economy and a strong tradition has always existed. The move towards entrepreneurship has been historically high (Gartner & Shane, 1995). Previous work on entrepreneurship in the US suggested that entrepreneurship was a meaningful lifestyle as well as a career identity for a lot of people. Previous research suggests that some 4% of all adults in the US had tried to start up some kind of business at some point in their lives (Reynolds & White, 1997).

However recent research suggests that the move to self employment and entrepreneurship is getting higher. It is estimated that by the time people retire in the US, around half of all working men have had one or more years of self employment while every one in four has been self employed for six years or more